Stuart Grehan is an example of what golfers could or should do if the professional game doesn’t work out. Although the pro dream disappeared, his journey to Amateur Championship success shows that golf can still give you great days and many should follow his lead on this.
I admit I didn’t know much about Stuart when I first entered the world of golf writing. You expect it to be all bells and whistles at the top with Rory McIlroy and co giving you all the column inches but it’s at the lower levels where the heart and soul of golf really is and where the reality of this game hits home. It is not for the faint hearted.
Looking at Stuart’s swing over the last few years, if you didn’t know him you would say that he has a swing for the top of the game. Golf just doesn’t work like that unfortunately for him. Although things went wrong along the way during his stint in the professional ranks where he was competing on mini tours, the EuroPro and HotelPlanner Tour, you can say that after his Amateur Championship win he is about to finally live the dream with Open, Masters and US Open starts to come.
Stuart became just the ninth Irishman to win the Amateur at Hoylake on Saturday. Nine out of one hundred and thirty one editions. Days like that don’t come around often and they should be heralded and celebrated to the fullest.
McIlroy’s Masters victory in April was an indication that Irish golf will still enjoy its fair share of days of days and dine at the top table for perhaps another decade but I think golf fans in this country have copped on to the fact that the successes of McIlroy and Lowry are papering over the cracks of what is a dwindling presence at the top of the game.
Ireland has enjoyed five mini tour victories between the Clutch Pro Tour and the Alps Tour, it’s great to see some lads getting some very welcome success, they work just as hard as anyone but these green shoots highlight how far we have fallen down the ladder. Stuart was one of them.
I saw a video where it was questioned whether an ex professional should be allowed to enter and win some of the big amateur competitions. The video was fair but there was one glaring misconception where Stuart was compared to Bryson DeChambeau and would it be fair if Bryson returned to the top of the amateur game as quickly as Stuart.
It’s like comparing chalk and cheese. Stuart’s professional career ended with one official world golf ranking win in 86 events, coming on the now defunct EuroPro Tour in 2022. Compared to the millions at the top of the game or even the earnings of a journeyman pro, Stuart collected less than €20,000 between 2018 and 2023.
Returning to the amateur ranks has given Stuart a new lease of life. He played on the GB&I Walker Cup team last year and will do so again on home soil in Lahinch this September, what a thrill that will be. He won the Irish Amateur and Close last year and became the first County Louth member to win the East of Ireland in 41 years earlier this month. His success at the Amateur Championship puts him on a pedestal as one of Ireland’s greatest amateur golfers and that’s a career to be celebrated.
Rather than have gripes over an ex pro coming in and sweeping the biggest prizes in the amateur game. His presence here in the Irish domestic game should be welcomed. What better motivation and fuel for some of our budding elite amateurs to not only be paired in groups with Stuart but to have the opportunity to beat him? If you can beat Stuart you’re doing something right.
We haven’t had an elite amateur dominate the Irish scene for a while now. Stuart is doing it and now he has carried that into the global amateur game. This is what you need to do if you want to turn professional. Can you at least dominate at home and compete abroad? At 33 Stuart has shown what the youngsters need to do.
Over the next twelve months, Stuart is about to experience events that were just in a different lightyear for him when he was a professional. The Open next month and the Masters and US Open next year. However, he may well be eying up winning the Global Amateur Pathway which would give him a season exemption on the DP World Tour for 2027. Again, a tour that seemed out of reach in the pro game. So maybe he will have a decision to make at the end of the season as to where he goes next.
And who knows? Maybe an easier route to top tier of the pro game might be on.
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